Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Major Professor

John W. Lounsbury

Committee Members

Dudley Dewhirst, Greg Dobbins, Tom Ladd

Abstract

This study investigated how several individual and organizational factors were related to nursing professionals' exhibited customer service behaviors. Specifically, individual factors included self-reported customer service orientation, positive mood state, and job fairness cognitions. Organizational factors included transformational leadership, perceived climate for customer service, and perceived supervisory commitment to customer service. Subjects were 201 nursing professionals from two hospitals in the South. Nursing supervisors provided criterion ratings on customer service behaviors exhibited by the subjects. All predictor variables were answered from the nurses' frame of reference (i.e., climate for service reflected nurse's perception, etc.). Results of the structural equations analysis showed significant path weights for the self-reported customer service orientation variable and for a combined transformational leadership/leader commitment to customer service variable in predicting rated customer service behaviors. Also, results showed that this leadership variable was very instrumental in creating a climate for service. Further, opposite of the hypotheses, results showed a significant but negative relationship between pay satisfaction and the criterion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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